Tag: controlling your tongue

Old Testament: Jeremiah 1 & 2

Poetry: Proverbs 4

New Testament: James 2

(I told Andy he was in charge this week so yes, he could have some days discussing various chapters from James that don’t line up precisely with the reading plan in order to have some two-part devotions. So, today’s devotion actually comes from James 3).

Have you ever hurt someone with your words? Of course, we all have. That inability to hold your tongue. The control of the tongue has both negative and positive aspects. It involves the ability to restrain the tongue in silence. But it also means being able to control it in gracious speech when that is required.

Sanctification in any area of our lives always expresses both sides. A putting off and a putting on. Speech and silence, appropriately expressed, are together the mark of the mature (compare with one of the clearest illustrations of this in Colossians 3:1–17). Nor is this James’s first reference to speech. He had already said that for a professing believer to fail to bridle the tongue is to be guilty of self-deception (1:22–25) and the hallmark of a person whose religion is worthless (1:26). He uses some imagery to explain just how powerful this tongue is. In James 3:3–5, James uses two illustrations. The tongue is like the bit in the mouth of a horse. This tiny appliance controls the enormous power and energy of the horse and is used to give it direction. James may well have been familiar with this picture from common experience in daily life. He had seen powerful Roman military horses and had probably heard stories of chariot races. The point, however, is the power and influence concentrated in one small object. That’s how it is with the tongue.

The tongue is also like the rudder in a boat. Large ships were not unknown in the ancient world. The ship that originally was to transport Paul across the Mediterranean en route to Rome held 276 people (Acts 27:37). We know that a large ship like the Isis could carry one thousand people. Yet such a big and heavy vessel was directed simply by a turn of the rudder!

Why does James speak this way? Of course, divine inspiration but also of both biblical knowledge and personal experience. The tongue as I’ve heard it said “carries into the world the breath that issues from the heart”.

We do not realize how powerful for evil the tongue is because we are so used to its polluting influence.

Jesus says the tongue projects the thoughts and intentions of the heart. It is from within, “out of the heart,” that the mouth speaks (compare with Matthew 12:34; 15:18–19). But like the smoker, so accustomed to the odor, the atmosphere in which they live, the person with polluted speech has little or no sense of it — no sense that they exhale bad breath every time they speak.

But with all of this said, James is forced into a confession. Nobody — Jesus excepted — has succeeded in mastering the tongue! Our only hope as we pursue the discipline of self that leads to mastery of the tongue is that we belong to Christ and that we are being made increasingly like him. But this battle for “vocal holiness” is a long-running one, and it needs to be waged incessantly, daily, hourly. Are we fighting it? So we get it. We don’t say mean things, we think about what we say. We use judgment with our words. Many people miss one important element in taming the tongue and that is adding Godly speech to our vocabulary. This is a life-changing, mind-altering, and wonderfully encouraging side.

Which we will get into tomorrow. 🙂

-Andy Cisneros

Reflection Questions

1. Knowing what you now know about the tongue from James 3, what warnings and instruction on the words you say and don’t say can you apply to what James has to say in James 2?
2. Which do you find harder – silence when silence is most appropriate or gracious speech when gracious speech is most important? Think of an example of when you should have been silent – but you weren’t. And, an example of when you could have used gracious speech – but you didn’t. How could the situation or relationship have been altered by better control of your tongue? How might your tongue be used now to help mend these relationships?
3. Are there any specific words/phrases that your speech would be better without?
4. In what situations do you find it difficult to control your tongue? What could you do next time you are in that situation to demonstrate that you want to become more and more Christ-like?